June 13 Tuesday

Tonight’s evening chat with Danielle was encouraging, as she sounded a lot more like herself.  The around-the-clock pain and anti-nausea meds certainly have something to do with it, but her intestinal system is slowly coming back to life with all its creaks and groans and we are thankful for that.  She had a “kind of decent” sleep last night – it’s hard to avoid waking up periodically throughout the night, but it certainly is a blessing to have a quiet private room.  Breakfast came care of Carina – a lovely egg McMuffin, hashbrown and coffee, gourmet food when you’re normally faced with hospital kitchen fare.  It has been a struggle to eat, and so maintaining a decent calorie input hasn’t been happening.  This is important both for Danielle to have some reserves for the upcoming chemo, and also for little growing Ava.  The upcoming challenge will be to increase that calorie input, or she will need TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition), kind of a supper-in-a-bag that is administered via IV.  This would provide the calories she needs, but would also require a longer hospital stay. 

There were a number of visitors today again, which was again a great encouragement for Danielle.  Lauren spent part of the day there and helped her take a shower, and even shaved her legs - a somewhat daunting task to shave someone else’s legs with a crummy disposable razor when your client is taking blood thinners, but thankfully the task was completed without incident. 

The oncologist dropped by as well today to answer some questions and talk about the upcoming weeks.  He has been doing a lot of researching, but the fact of the matter is that Danielle’s case is extremely rare and there isn’t really any precedent for treatment regimens.  He will see her again in about two weeks to discuss a chemo plan, but until then it is her job to gain strength and heal. 

Ava’s heartbeat was loud and strong this evening, and she’s been giving her mama lots of good hefty kicks, which is encouraging to feel.  Today she is 20 weeks and 1 day – we thought the turnover day was Tuesday but apparently yesterday was the new official halfway-to-baby date.  It is encouraging to know that Ava and Danielle are at this milestone point but of course there is a long ways to go yet.  In some ways the pain and trauma of the cancer diagnosis and surgery has robbed some of the joy of pregnancy, but feeling her kicks and celebrating the halfway point is reassuring and brings back some of that joy.

On a frustrating note, it seems that on top of everything else, a new pain got added to the list, and it was determined that Danielle now has a bladder infection as well.  This can be a more common thing in pregnancy, and may have been present before the surgery and catheterization already but the surgery antibiotics would have settled it down and now it is developing again.  Another course of antibiotics should hopefully take care of it, but it is an unwelcome complication (are complications ever really welcome?)

The hormones of pregnancy often send ladies on an emotional roller coaster, and when this gets coupled to the heavy circumstances Danielle is facing, it is unavoidable to have a lot of ups and downs.  There is a ways to go yet in the hospital with pain management and nutritional needs, but it will be good to be back home.  Danielle spent some time outside in the hospital courtyard enjoying some fresh air, and she really wanted to weed the flower beds and misses her garden at home. 

Devotions tonight were once again so meaningful and perfect for the day:

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,

according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus
 throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 3:20-21

Nothing is impossible for God!  He can do so much more than we can even imagine, and we can ask Him for far more than we do.  Whether it is help and strength to get through a day, or the coming minute, or to bring complete healing – we serve a great and awesome God who is not limited by our asking or our thinking. 

Prayer requests:

For a greatly increased appetite so Danielle and Ava will have proper nutrition, which will speed up the process of going home

For continued healing of her intestinal system to handle that greatly increased appetite

For reliance every day and every minute on the love and faithfulness of our Father